A Multitude Of Sins
by Teobi
Summary: A take on the Seven Deadly Sins. I don't know how else to describe it. It's just their normal behaviour!
1. Wrath

_**A/N:** Aloha everybody! This story is a take on the Seven Deadly Sins. I'll give each 'Sin' a corresponding castaway and his/her own chapter. JWood201 and I thought it would be funny (hopefully!) if the Sins weren't all that deadly- just normal stuff that they do anyway. __Well, normal for _them_. :)_

_All characters property of the amazing Mr. Sherwood Schwartz!_

* * *

><p><strong>Wrath<strong>

"Gilligan! Watch what you're..."

"Gilligan! Why don't you..."

"Gilligan! Will you stop making that..."

"Gilligan! Can't you be more..."

It's a normal day at the huts. Gilligan is meant to be helping Skipper repair some minor damage to the roof of the Howells' hut. A storm blew over the island in the night, whipping the trees into a frenzy and howling round the campsite like a vengeful banshee. There was always a lot of repairing to do the day after a storm. A lot of repairing, and some conspicuously absent castaways.

Gilligan climbs up and down the ladder. This is a relatively simple action that most people manage with a fair amount of ease. Gilligan turns it into an assault course. He hits the Skipper in the face with an armload of palm leaves. He turns around and does it again, only he hits the back of the Skipper's head, knocking off his captain's hat. A captain's hat is a symbol of authority, but Gilligan adds insult to injury by knocking it off onto the sand and stepping on it. The Skipper bends to retrieve it and Gilligan swings round and hits him on the butt with the end of a bamboo pole. The Skipper goes down, landing on top of his hat and crushing it completely.

All the while, Gilligan is talking. Not talking rationally, mind you. Not discussing the weather or the damage caused by the wind and rain. Not making casual, dryly amusing observations about the Howells' disappearing acts whenever the smallest amount of work was required. Not asking reasonable questions to which the Skipper might supply a reasonable answer. No, Gilligan is shooting off his mouth as though words were bullets and he was on a firing range trying to hit a target a long way away. His chatter goes off in all directions, ricocheting from one topic to another without pausing for breath. Skinny Mulligan this, Billy McGuire that. Cousin Rudolph. Herman, his pet turtle. Some kid called Fatso who was sick all over the place after going on a fairground ride after eating a foot long corndog. Some kid in his class who got a marble stuck some place "you don't even want to know," because of some game of Dare they were playing on some day in July during some summer holiday waiting for the Beach Bus to take them to some beach where some kid would get spanked by his Ma for shouting rude things at some girl in a swimsuit.

The Skipper tries hard to shut out the noise, but he can't. The Skipper is a tightly coiled spring at the best of times. His physical resemblance to a big, cuddly teddy bear belies a deep insecurity about his weight, his abilities as an able-bodied seaman (especially after the Minnow catastrophe) and his social skills in general. The Skipper is loved by all the castaways, but he'll never really believe it. And the more he tries to ignore the things that bother him, the more they bother him. Gilligan's inane chatter is one of those things.

It's not that Gilligan has an annoying voice, per se. It's just that he won't shut up. And talking nineteen to the dozen all the time means he's not concentrating on the task at hand. The Skipper likes to see things get done. It's why he made it to Captain in the first place. The Skipper's not afraid of hard work. He just wishes the work would get done. On time. And with minimal fuss.

Gilligan puts down a bucket of tar without telling the Skipper, and the Skipper steps back and puts his foot in it. His foot sinks into the thick, viscous ooze. His sock and shoe and his pants leg are ruined. The bucket clings to his foot like an unwanted admirer. He can't even kick it off. Gilligan says _oops._

"'_Oops?_'" The Skipper can feel his temperature rising.

"Double oops?" says Gilligan.

Despite the Skipper's irritated assertion that he can remove the bucket himself, Gilligan bends down and grabs at the lower half of Skipper's leg, pulling and tugging on the bucket. The Skipper, unbalanced, hops on one foot, pushing at Gilligan's shoulders. Telling him to get off. But Gilligan persists. After all, it was his fault the bucket was there in the first place. Gilligan makes things worse when he tries to help.

After ignoring the Skipper's increasingly panicky protests, Gilligan finally yanks the tar bucket free and hurtles backwards, carried by momentum. He trips over a bamboo pole and the bucket flies up in the air and lands on the hut roof. _How do you like that?_ He grins. _That's where I wanted it in the first place._

Gilligan has all the luck. Meanwhile, The Skipper has fallen backwards and is now lying in the sand. Tar and sand is not a good combination. Like tar and feathers. The Skipper wishes he could tar and feather Gilligan.

As the Skipper struggles to his feet, Gilligan picks up the bamboo pole and swings around and hits him in the stomach. Then he swings around again and hits him in the back. There is never a moment's respite. Gilligan is a sweet kid, but a one man disaster area. It's a good thing the insurance company had never known the extent of Gilligan's clumsiness or the premiums would have gone through the roof. Even Mr. Howell would have balked at the amount the Skipper would have had to pay just for having Gilligan step aboard the Minnow while it was still safely moored in the marina.

Gilligan climbs the ladder one-handed with the bamboo pole slung over his shoulder. As he reaches the top, the end of the bamboo pole hits the tar bucket and knocks it off the roof. The Skipper, standing below the ladder, looks up just as the bucket comes down. The bucket lands on his head. Upside down, of course. Covering the Skipper's top half with tar.

"Oops," Gilligan says again, looking down.

"OOPS?" The Skipper shouts through a face full of tar.

"Double oops? Triple oops? Oops with bananas and whipped cream on top?"

The Skipper has had it up to here. Tar oozes down his neck and into his collar. Gilligan descends the ladder.

"You know, Skipper, you really shouldn't stand under a ladder. Things could fall on top of you," he says, helpfully.

"_Gilligaaaannn..._"

The Skipper reaches up to grab his hat, but the hat is stuck fast to his head with tar. This makes him even more mad. He splutters and grumbles, tugging at the hat. Gilligan giggles, then apologises. Then giggles again. Finally the first mate removes his own hat and hits himself over the head with it.

"There, Skipper. I did it for you." He gives the Skipper a goofy but utterly charming smile.

The Skipper's wrath is fleeting, as it always is. He blows up much like the storms that rip the palm leaves off the roofs. A lot of noise and bluster, but then it's over. He smiles through a layer of tar.

"Thanks, little buddy," he says. His tone is ironic, but of course it goes over Gilligan's head.

"No problem, Skipper," his friend replies, grinning.


	2. Envy

**Envy**

Mary Ann sits in the girls' hut, listening to Ginger. The actress's voice rambles on, and her words cause Mary Ann to slump.

"Really, Mary Ann, having so many boyfriends isn't as much fun as you might think. For a start, I'm always forgetting their names. There was one time I was out with Bill and I called him Gustav by mistake. And I can never remember if it's Gordon that has the gold tooth or Charles. And Eric has roving hands like you wouldn't believe. And Victor is always staring at my..." Ginger pauses for breath and indicates her chest area, "...you know. Meanwhile, going out for dinner with Douglas is like watching someone mix cement, and Geoffrey blows cigar smoke in my face when he talks. Then there are the sports stars, more interested in their own game play than anything _I_ have to say, and the Hollywood film producers, always trying to get me into their offices for 'private auditions'. Really, you're not missing anything." Ginger lifts the hand mirror to her face and returns to her primping, making sure that her little speech hasn't smudged her lipstick or caused her mascara to clog. She bounces her thick, lustrous flame-red tresses in the palm of her hand, turning her head this way and that. Never taking her eyes off herself.

"Which do you think is my best side?" she asks, lifting her chin and studying her jawline.

"The left," says Mary Ann. Always the left. Ginger won't accept any other answer.

"I think so, too." The actress smiles with satisfaction.

Mary Ann sighs and gets up. There's laundry to do. There's always laundry to do. And cooking, and cleaning and washing. She vaguely wonders how she ended up with the role of camp nurturer. _Because it comes naturally to me, _she realises. _Because I assume the submissive role. Because I want to see people happy and content and well-fed. Because there was always someone at home that needed looking after. Because it's who I am._

Mary Ann thinks about her own ex-boyfriends. She can count them on one hand. Goodness, she can count them on one finger! Horace wasn't even her boyfriend, and now, because of that silly radio announcement, all the other castaways knew she'd invented their romance just because she was jealous of Ginger.

_Imagine having so many boyfriends that you can't even remember all their names!_

There were boys in Winfield, of course there were. Cute boys. Farmhands, with broad shoulders and tanned arms. There was a boy who worked in the hardware store- a tousled headed blond boy with a smattering of freckles across his nose and a deadly attractive aw-shucks grin. Rocky, his name was. She'd blush when she saw him, but he had never shown any interest in her beyond amiable friendship. At the age of eighteen he'd left Winfield and moved to California. Someone said San Francisco. He had always looked like someone who should be living on the coast.

Ginger attracted men effortlessly. She shimmied and sashayed and pouted and giggled and lowered her eyelashes like Marilyn Monroe. Men seemed to like the suggestion of naughty innocence. It brought out all sorts of animal instincts, she guessed. She didn't want to think too hard about what kind of instincts, because it always made her squirm and feel just a little bit scared. How could Ginger not be afraid of what a man might do when he was in that frame of mind? Sometimes it was as though she was encouraging it. Even here. Stranded on this island with the same people every day, she'd make a play for any of the men if she thought it would get her what she wanted. The amount of times Mary Ann had watched poor Skipper blush and grin and act like a helpless schoolboy as Ginger wound her arms around him. Teased him. Tickled the top of his head. The poor man had to know there was nothing in it, but he lapped up her attentions. It did nothing to damage his friendship with her. The Professor too, had been known to cast one or two subtle glances in Ginger's direction when she sauntered past in her clingy gold dress, her rear view just as enticing (perhaps even more so) as her front. And Gilligan. Even though he didn't like it, Ginger could still reduce the first mate to a stammering, quivering wreck whenever she approached, flaunting herself in front of him, tying him in knots. Making him knock himself out on the nearest tree or bamboo support.

Ginger cast her line and reeled them in and played with them and let them go, and for the most part they loved it. All those hapless visitors. Mary Ann suddenly shuddered at the thought of cosying up to the Japanese sailor, or that awful man who tried to win money by pretending he was here all alone. These weren't attractive men in the least. But Ginger could make them feel ten feet tall and what's more, she could look as though she was enjoying it.

Little girlie. That's what the painter Dubov had called _her,_ Mary Ann. "Little girlie!"

Perhaps that was all she was destined to be. A little girlie, cooking and cleaning and washing everyone's clothes. The men looked at her all right- when she was approaching them with some dinner.

She sighs again. _That's enough self-pity, Mary Ann. You've got laundry to do._

The Professor comes up with some loony contraptions at the best of times, but the pedal-powered washtub is a Godsend. It's the closest thing to an automated laundromat Mary Ann has ever seen. As she piles in all the dirty clothes, towels and bedsheets, Gilligan appears to help her. He normally rides the bamboo bicycle to rotate the tub back and forth. She has to admit that the Professor's inventions do make daily chores fun. She'd rather watch Gilligan pedal the bamboo bicycle out in the open sunshine than watch Ginger admiring her own reflection in the hut all day.

Gilligan climbs aboard the bicycle and starts pumping his legs, around and around and around. He looks so enthusiastic, his face split by a wide grin, his dark hair flopping over his eyes. He looks like he's entered a race, the Tour de France. He pedals furiously and the tub whooshes back and forth, back and forth. The laundry heaves around inside. It'll be spotless at this rate.

When Mary Ann thinks about it, Gilligan is always around to help her. He turns up just when she needs him. It's as though her schedule is wired into his brain and he knows when it's laundry time, cleaning time, cooking time, and he certainly knows when it's eating time.

She remembers how he was on the fateful three hour tour. In and out of the galley bringing drinks and refreshments for the passengers, meeting the Howells' incessant demands without complaint, then up and down to the helm to make sure the Skipper was okay. He never stopped, but he had a smile on his face the whole time, and whenever he passed Mary Ann he tipped his hat and gave her a look that said _here we go again. No rest for the wicked._

Mary Ann realises that in his own way, Gilligan is a nurturer too. Just like she is.

_Ginger has a million boyfriends, but I'll bet not one of them is as special to her as Gilligan is to me. And in a way, I guess I ought to feel sorry for her._

"Mary Ann, why are you looking at me like that?" says Gilligan, his blue eyes peering intently at her, feet still a blur on the pedals.

"Oh, I guess I was just thinking how lucky I am," Mary Ann replies, laughing at his look of instant confusion.


	3. Greed

**Greed**

Who said you have to speculate to accumulate? Thurston Howell III has the Midas Touch. Being continually investigated for income tax evasion has never dented his profits, ruined his luck, destroyed his own confidence in himself. Thurston Howell the III is the Wizard, the Wolf of Wall Street. One of the wealthiest men alive.

And there's another proof of Thurston Howell III's luck. He _is_ still alive. No thanks to that _knucklehead_ who calls himself a Captain and that _dunderheaded _crewman of his. Liabilities, the two of them! If he didn't know better, he'd say it was collusion!

It is perhaps fortunate that due to yet another one of those looming tax investigations, Thurston Howell III saw fit to bring aboard the _S.S Minnow_ a sizeable chunk of his ruthlessly acquired fortune. And perhaps he shouldn't be too hard on the poor Captain and his hapless mate, because now all of Wall Street thinks he's missing presumed dead, and here he is, safe with his money- hundreds of thousands of dollars stacked in carefully wrapped bundles, waiting to be taken out daily to be admired. Stroked. Kissed. Coddled and spoken soothingly to. How many times had Thurston Howell III returned to the sanctity of the Howell Hut after a hard day playing golf and shouting at Gilligan to flop onto his bed with an armful of hundred dollar bills and his beloved Teddy, muttering quietly to himself. _Nothing can hurt me now._

Teddy understood. Teddy appreciated the importance of wealth and the need to stay in control. You couldn't pull the cashmere over Teddy's eyes!

After the gold mine fiasco- _how dare they _all_ try to smuggle gold aboard the raft?- _Thurston Howell III discovered that Gilligan had found four pearls inside four oysters. Not just one, as he'd led the millionaire to believe. How had Thurston Howell found out? He could smell them. He could sense them, burning holes in the boy's pockets as he carried them around. The finely tuned Howell internal pearl radar bleeped constantly. _What does he want with pearls? He doesn't have a clue what they're worth, except that they're worth something to me! He plays with them in front of me as if they were marbles. Marbles! You may as well give him steel ball bearings and a hearty handshake and send him on his way. He'd be just as happy._

It irks Thurston Howell III immensely. This lack of appreciation for the thing itself, except for the power it brings to its owner. _Why, that supercilious smirk the boy wears sometimes. Knowing that I'd do anything to have those pearls. Just four pearls! What's it to him? _

If Thurston Howell III looked at himself properly in the mirror, he'd see that the 'supercilious smirk' he attributes to Gilligan sits perfectly comfortably on his own face, and the desire for absolute power is a trait that belongs solely to him.

His dear wife Lovey long since gave up the need to possess those four pearls for herself.

_For goodness' sakes, Thurston, if they make the boy happy, let him keep them!_

_Goodness has nothing to do with it, Lovey. That boy knows I want them! It's a conspiracy!_

_Yes, dear. You keep telling yourself that._

_You don't understand, Lovey! It's sheer greed! Gilligan is hoarding his wealth! _

And with that, Thurston Howell III instinctively skips over to his hidden wall safe, peers over his shoulder to make sure no-one is looking (not even Lovey herself), pulls the grass panel aside and rattles the combination to make sure the safe is...well, safe.

"Gilligan! My dear boy." Thurston Howell III slips an arm affectionately about the first mate's skinny shoulders as they stroll along the jungle path. "Have you ever thought of investing your fortune?"

"Investing my fortune?"

Why must the boy _repeat _everything so! Thurston Howell III rolls his Teddy-like brown eyes and shakes the irritation away.

"Yes, Gilligan. Markets go up and down. You must know when to buy and when to sell!"

"Markets go up and down? Gee. I used to go to the market with my Mom and my brother on Saturdays, and it never went up or down, it was always there in the same place. At the bottom of the hill near the Town Hall in a big open square where they had guys with carts selling ice creams and hot dogs and cotton candy and licorice whips and..."

Gilligan's eyes begin to glaze over. Thurston Howell III quickly puts a stop to the rambling monologue before it gets any worse, shaking the first mate by the shoulder to bring him round. Gilligan blinks, reorientates himself, puts his hand on his hat to make sure it's still there.

"Gilligan. The _pearls!_" Howell says through clenched teeth.

Gilligan looks intensely thoughtful. "Nope, they never sold pearls. Although maybe they did." He shrugs.

"Gilligan, you'd benefit from some sound financial advice. Failing that, a coconut should land on your head and knock some sense into you. How about this suggestion- keeping your pearls in a Safe Deposit Box."

Gilligan appears unconvinced. "Why would I want to do that? I need to be able to hold onto them and look at them."

Time for some scare tactics. Thurston Howell III slaps on his best wolfish grin. "Because, dear boy, you never know who might steal them from you in the dead of night!"

Gilligan peers intently at Thurston Howell III. "I know who would steal them from me in the dead of night."

"Oh? Who?" Thurston Howell III keeps his cheesy grin plastered on, although his patience is slowly unravelling.

"_You."_

With that, Gilligan saunters off, flipping a pearl up into the air and catching it, looking unbearably smug.

Thurston Howell III tells himself to forget about the pearls, but he can't. Sometimes in his dreams it's not four pearls he sees, but four hundred, four thousand, four million. A vast pile of pearls with Gilligan sitting right at the top like a Lord, grinning down at him and waving._ Hi, Mr. Howell! Wanna count 'em? There's a few more today than there were yesterday- gee, I don't know how that happens, guess I'm just lucky, huh!_

Thurston Howell III usually wakes from these dreams in a cold sweat with his blankets all twisted and Teddy staring sternly at him with beady button eyes as if to say, _get a grip on yourself, man!_

One day, Thurston Howell III is having some bad luck on the golf course. His avocado pit flies into the rough. He stamps his feet and has a tantrum. Gilligan puts his hand into his pocket and pulls out one of his pearls.

"Here, Mr. Howell. This is my Luck Pearl. Give it a rub, it might help you some."

Thurston Howell III is outraged. "Gilligan, there is nothing lucky about this pearl while it still belongs to you and not to me!"

"Don't be like that, Mr. Howell," Gilligan says, almost mournfully. "I may as well tell you, seeing as you're so interested in them. These pearls _do _have meaning for me. That one's my Luck Pearl. I also have one for Faith, when I think we might never get rescued and I might not see my folks again. I have one for Happiness, when I see Skipper feeling sad because he still thinks everyone blames him for the shipwreck. And I have one for Love, for when I see you and Mrs. Howell arguing and splitting up and not talking to each other." Gilligan smiles sheepishly. "That one gets rubbed a lot. But it works, I guess, because you always go back to each other." He drags his toe across the scrubby grass. "I hate when you fight. You're always so unhappy when you're apart."

Thurston Howell III looks at the little object sitting in the middle of his palm. It's a small thing, really. A grain of sand once irritated an oyster and the creature built a smooth layer around it to stop itself from being hurt. That's what a pearl is. It's a layer of finely crafted protection designed to stop the pain of an unwanted intruder.

Thurston Howell III sighs. The boy will be the undoing of him! He rubs the Luck Pearl vigorously between his palms and gives it back to Gilligan with a wink and a flourish.

"Gilligan, my boy, time and time again you prove the old saying wrong. You _can_ teach an old dog new tricks."

Gilligan smiles broadly and wedges the pearl back into his jeans pocket. Then he fixes the millionaire with a sneaky look worthy of the Wolf of Wall Street himself.

"Yeah," he grins, "but can you teach him to play golf?"

"Why, the very _nerve_...!" the indignant millionaire blusters. He shoves the first mate aside in a display of affectionate arrogance, striding to the tee, flexing his arms and waving his club.

Gilligan giggles behind his hand as the millionaire swings his golf club and the avocado pit promptly hurtles skywards and disappears into the trees. "I think I'd better find a fifth pearl," he says. "One for making miracles happen!"


	4. Pride

**Pride**

The Professor stares in dismay as yet another experimental raft gets to a certain point in the lagoon and begins to sink. Its hapless helmsman looks around in panic and yells loudly.

"Professor! My feet are starting to get wet...!"

The Professor cups both hands around his mouth. This lends resonance to his voice, allowing the sound wave to carry further, in the direction he wants it to go. _No sense in wasting energy yelling and jumping around like a cat on a hot tin roof. The raft is sinking. Like they all sink. _

"Keep going, Gilligan!" he calls back, knowing that it's futile but not wanting the others to see him lose hope too soon.

Moments later, the other five castaways- standing in a group huddle as they always do at times like this- give out a collective series of perturbed sighs and mutterings as the raft tilts ominously and disappears beneath the surface. The panicky helmsman looks briefly as though he's standing on water- some kind of Holy Visitor sent by God Himself, who has finally taken pity on them at last.

The Professor gets a bizarre mental image of Gilligan striding back across the lagoon, a stony look on his face, his feet leaving a steady path of light, circular ripples. Splish, splish, splish, splish.

_Professor Roy Hinkley, the Holy Father has a message for you._

A message? For me?

_Yes. The message is- 'can't you do _anything_ right'?_

The Professor blinks away this highly irrational thought and watches silently (with some relief), as Gilligan begins sinking too. The first mate lets out a high-pitched squawk as he enters the water, his skinny arms flailing. The other castaways' shoulders slump. They're defeated. They cast furtive glances at each other. Gilligan gives up yelling and starts swimming, spitting out water like a dolphin exhaling through its blowhole.

"Never mind, Professor," says the Skipper, laying a huge, friendly arm around the scientist's shoulders. "We tried. It's the glue. We just can't get the formula right to make it last." Jonas Grumby gives Roy Hinkley a brotherly shake. "We'll just keep going at it, that's all."

'We'. They always say the collective 'we' after a disaster. Even when they end up blaming someone- usually Gilligan, who takes the accusations with varying degrees of acceptance, although the Professor knows it makes the boy unhappy to think he's the reason why they're still stranded.

We. It's a small mercy for which the Professor is grateful.

Gilligan wades ashore looking sheepish. His clothes cling wetly to his body, accentuating the fact that he's really not as skinny as he looks. The Professor steals a quick glance at Mary Ann, who rushes down the beach to take hold of her friend's arm.

"Gilligan! Are you alright?" she asks, staring into his face.

"Sure, I'm fine. Just a little wet, that's all." He grins that goofy grin and allows Mary Ann to escort him ashore.

Everyone begins drifting away. The Professor folds his arms defensively across his chest. From the outside, he looks as though he may have a mild headache, a vague twinge in his stomach. Inside, his guts are churning. His heart sinks through his body like a runaway elevator. Why can't I get us off this island? _Why?_

The Skipper returns to pat The Professor on the back. "Come on, Professor. No use standing around. Let's get back to the huts. Mary Ann's going to make coconut crème pies!"

Coconut crème pies. How easily everyone else is cheered up. The Professor's head is full of computations as he trudges back up the beach and onto the path leading home. It should be simple enough to build a raft that floats! Why, he's constructed huts! He's made a 'bicycle' that powers just about everything, and he's made everything that the bicycle powers. He's made a hot air balloon, he's made signal fires using phosphorescent rocks, he can recharge the radio batteries using seawater. He's made a lie detector. He's made a pump for the well.

_But I just cannot make a boat or a raft that floats! _

The tree sap glue is of course, the main reason. No matter what ingredients he adds to it, its sticking powers are temporary. He's confounded by it, but then he's confounded by a lot of things that happen on this island. He gets a disturbing thought sometimes, when he has to drink a natural remedy he's concocted for calming his nerves. What if they had all died in the original storm, and this island was actually part of the afterlife? Yes, it was probably a question they _all _asked, time and time again after another rescue attempt failed. But in his most irrational moments, he found that he could almost believe it, even though he knew it was bizarre, superstitious nonsense.

Mary Ann feeds them comfort pie, buzzing round the table like a sunny little bee. Gilligan, now dressed in clean, dry clothes, compliments her profusely, when his mouth isn't stuffed to the edges. Gilligan takes it all in his stride. The Professor wonders if that's because he's a pragmatic soul, or just that he possesses the mind of a goldfish and forgets everything three seconds later. But that's unfair too. Gilligan wouldn't even know what the word 'pragmatic' meant, and he certainly has one doozy of a memory. No, it's just that Gilligan accepts defeat in the same way he accepts everything. To paraphrase Rudyard Kipling- triumph and disaster, he treats those two impostors just the same.

_I wish I could._ The Professor picks up a wooden fork and prods at his helping of pie, then glances up and sees Ginger looking at him, her eyebrow quirked ever so gently. Her expression is soft, sympathetic.

"Eat," she mouths.

The Professor eats. Even the pie tastes of failure.

A few days later, he's back at the drawing board. _What am I doing wrong? Is it weight distribution? Ballast? How do the indigenous tribes do it? Hollowed out logs with outriggers attached. We've tried that. Everything gets to the same part of the lagoon and sinks._

The Professor wipes his brow with a handkerchief. He thinks about how all their visitors managed to get away. The painter Dubov even tied his worthless canvases together and sailed off. How did he manage to do that? Duke Williams on his longboard, paddling out to catch a tsunami. Ridiculous, when you thought about it, but he made it. Some of their visitors were so desperate to get off the island that they swam. _Swam!_

_I give up. _The Professor throws his pencil down with a theatrical flourish. _So, we're destined to stay here forever. See if I care._

He leaves the supply hut and decides to go and check on the crops. It's a hot day, and he hopes his new sprinkler system is working. Someone has to pedal the bicycle to get the jets working, but he can usually coerce a 'volunteer' with the assertion that if they don't water the crops, they'll starve. The Skipper is normally the first one to jump up at this.

The camp site is deserted apart from the Howells, sitting outside their hut on bamboo sun loungers. Mr. Howell, wearing his straw hat, is listening to the radio and reading The Financial Times. Mrs. Howell is fanning herself. She's smiling, for some reason, very faintly. They nod at the Professor as he crosses the clearing, too far for actual conversation, but close enough for a greeting of some sort. The millionaire touches the brim of his hat, the Professor nods and waves back.

He hears shouting and yelling coming from the direction he's headed in. He quickens his pace. Of course, it's Gilligan and the girls. They all squeal as loudly as each other, reaching decibels that make the ear drums itch. Sometimes the Professor thinks Mary Ann and Ginger have made Gilligan an honorary girl. He certainly spends enough time with them. He's mild and unthreatening and they, in turn, like having him around.

_Well, whatever they're doing, they'd better not be damaging our crops!_

He finds out what they're doing as soon as he reaches the vegetable patch. The Skipper is sitting astride the bicycle, pedalling with his huge, strong legs like tree trunks. They've moved one of the sprinklers away from the crops and Gilligan and the girls are playing in the rotating streams of cooling water. The Skipper sees the Professor and stops pedalling, a look of anxiety flashing across his cuddly bear features, but the Professor gives him a wave, deciding that as long as the crops are alright, the younger castaways can carry on enjoying themselves.

Rainbows appear in the droplets of water. Hundreds of rainbows surrounding the trio as they skip around, laughing and throwing their arms in the air. The girls are in their bathing suits. No wonder the Skipper volunteered to pedal. The Professor's eyebrows raise at the sight of Ginger, all 6ft of her in her leopard skin bikini, wet hair plastered to her neck and shoulders. And little Mary Ann in her black one piece. She's even put her bathing cap on, bless her, as she takes every opportunity to touch Gilligan accidentally on his arms and shoulders. Gilligan is in his T-Shirt and a pair of blue shorts, plus, of course, his ever present hat. His skinny ankles are covered in mud and grass. He bats the girls away, drops of water winking on his eyelashes as he ducks their grasping hands.

The Professor looks at the Skipper and they both laugh. The Skipper waggles his eyebrows and smirks like a pantomime villain, jerking his thumb towards Ginger. The Professor stands with his hands on his hips, smiling at the shenanigans.

He knows the _real_ reason why he can't build a raft or a boat that floats. It's because of these people. If anything happened to any one of them he wouldn't be able to live with himself. Those waters are dangerous. Never mind the amount of visitors who took their chances, the Professor will never take a chance that puts his friends out there in unknown territory, battling against sharks, hoping that they'll reach the shipping lanes before they're all killed.

_It's not the tree sap glue. Not really. It's me. I just don't want anything to happen to my friends._

"Hey, Professor!" Gilligan shouts, before Ginger puts both hands out and pushes him for no other reason than to try and unbalance him. Gilligan leaps aside like a hare, all legs and feet. Ginger nearly falls in the mud, and screams like a true Horror Movie Queen. Mary Ann giggles, jumping up and down on the spot and clapping like an excited toddler. The water arcs over their heads and the rainbows dance around them. His friends are a snapshot, frozen in time. When he's old and grey, the Professor will remember this scene as clearly as if it happened yesterday.

_It's not that I can't build a raft or a boat that floats. It's just that I won't. _

The Professor is not a vain man, but he allows himself a brief flash of pride. It's not a selfish pride by any means. It's a pride borne of strength and a passion to do things right, no matter how long it takes him. But he won't take risks with his friends.

The Professor steals one last glance at Ginger, then takes a left turn and heads towards the vegetable patch proper. He can only take so much excitement- there's work to be done, and there are people to look after.

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><p>RIP Sherwood Schwartz 1916-2011<p> 


	5. Lust

_Quick A/N- A big thank you to everyone who's reviewed so far whether logged in or not. It's good to hear from you!_

_This chapter is entitled Lust. Due to the rating I've given this story, Lust means the kind of flirting Ginger did all the time on the show. No naughties._

**Lust**

"I wanna be loved by you, just you, nobody else but you..."

Ginger shimmies across the makeshift stage in a gown that hugs her in all the right places, and boy, does she have all the right places. Her slender fingers tipped with impeccable nails rake gently through the luxuriant fur stole wrapped around her neck and draped over her left shoulder. (Men go crazy imagining those same fingernails on their skin). She has perfected the art of smouldering. She unfocuses her eyes a little, makes them go smoky, mysterious, alluring. She lowers her heavily mascaraed eyelashes, bats them slowly at her audience, smiles her secret smile.

Ginger knows which ones are watching her more than others, but they're all caught in her net to some degree, sitting in rows before her like schoolchildren, their mouths agape. There's Mr. Howell, or the Production Manager as he dubs himself, winding up the cocophone, putting himself in charge of the music so that he can watch Ginger without feeling guilty about his wife. Ginger knows that Mr. Howell adores Lovey with every fibre of his being, but for half an hour every week her performance reminds the ageing millionaire what it's like to be a man, a red-blooded man with manly urges, enjoying that sense of jovial camaraderie that men feel when they're all together being...well, _men._

The Skipper? Well, if his eyes got any wider they'd fall clean out of his head. He laughs and applauds the most out of everyone, his big dinner-plate hands whacking together, echoing around the clearing. He shifts on his seat, grasping the knees of his beige pants, shaking his head in wonder. _Isn't she something! Hey, little buddy, isn't she something?_

"I wanna be loved by you, alone, boo-boop-bi-doo..."

Ginger smiles to herself as the Skipper turns to the man sitting in the row behind. Well, he's not a man yet, but they're working on it. He wears a red shirt and a white cap and a slightly bored expression. He sits quietly for the first ten minutes but then he starts fidgeting. When she sees his concentration beginning to lapse, Ginger puts in some extra moves just for him. She strokes her fur stole, looks directly at him. She winks, just a subtle flicker of her eyelid. She puts a little extra shimmy into her shake. She looks back at him over her shoulder, half her face buried in fur. He puts his chin in his hand and sighs, but he does what she wants and finally starts paying attention again.

Ginger sways and sashays and virtually ignores the one she's really interested in, playing up to the others, almost glancing at him but not quite. She relies on her peripheral vision, sharp and finely tuned through years of surviving in Hollywood. While she flirts shamelessly with Gilligan, she sees every one of the Professor's smallest movements out of the corner of her eye. He pushes his hand through his hair. He shakes his head slightly, he smiles ever so crookedly. He sits up straight. _Bad posture causes back problems. _He crosses one leg over the other. His pants are always a little too short and there's a glimpse of bare shin above the hem of his sock. He always pulls his socks right up as far as they can go. His foot moves up and down. She follows the bouncing of his blue deck shoe until he obviously realises he's showing signs of having fun and puts his leg down again. He chats to the Skipper. She wishes she could lip read, but his handsome head is turned ¾ away from her now. Still, that allows her to study the hair at the back of his neck.

When the performance is over (and she can practically hear Gilligan's huge sigh of relief), Ginger graciously accepts the applause and smiles beatifically as one by one, they give her a standing ovation. First the Skipper, then the Professor, Mr. Howell is already standing, then Mary Ann, squealing girlishly, then Mrs. Howell, mouthing _wonderful, darling!_ And blowing theatrical kisses. Ginger looks around for Gilligan and sees a flash of red through the trees. He's already gone, hightailing it back to camp so he can be the first one at the dinner table. She's not offended.

_He's not all here anyway,_ as the Skipper is fond of saying.

As Mary Ann gets dinner ready, Ginger swans around the camp, still high on endorphins. Her green eyes dazzle, framed as they are by thick black lashes. The castaways continue to admire her like they'd admire a star fallen from the heavens.

"Why, Ginger, I think that was your best performance yet!" beams the Skipper, his big face all red with excitement. Ginger can see he wants to throw his arms around her, but he doesn't dare. Instead, she comes to him, winds her arms around his shoulders and tickles the hair over his ear.

"Why thank you, Skipper! I know I can always count on you for a _big_ round of applause." She giggles coquettishly, deliberately emphasising the double entendre.

The Skipper laps it up. "I've always got a big round of applause for my favourite girl!" he banters back, finally daring to hug her, making sure he doesn't put his hands anywhere he shouldn't, lest some Tiki god of beauty and decorum strike him down.

"Gosh. You certainly do know how to put a big smile on a girl's face," Ginger breathes, undulating against him. Going one better.

"Well, you know what they say, Ginger. Big smile at night, Sailor's delight!"

"Skipper!" Ginger pretends to be scandalized, but her girlish laughter ripples the air around them. "I bet you're just _big all over_, aren't you?"

The Skipper does three things- he blushes like a boy, he puffs his chest out like a man, and he laughs heartily like the salty old sea dog he really is. Mrs. Howell, passing nearby, murmurs something in her ladylike way. Ginger smiles and finally unwraps herself from the Skipper's shoulders. She bats her eyelashes at him one more time, and then drifts away, knowing he's still watching her, laughing to himself at the way she leads him on.

Ginger approaches Gilligan. He sees her a mile away and he's already in fight-or-flight mode by the time she and her sparkly gown sidle up next to him.

"Hello, Gilligan," she purrs, running the tip of her index finger along his shoulder.

"_Oh _no." he warns her. "Don't start looking at me that way!"

"What way?" Ginger pouts.

"_That _way." He points at her face, circles his finger in the air in front of her.

"This way?" She gives him the full works, Marilyn Monroe style.

He nods. "_That _way."

Ginger eases closer, puts her pink lips next to his ear. "Don't you like it, Gilligan?" she breathes.

Gilligan grimaces and squirms sideways. "_Ging-errrrrr!_ Stop doing that, you're making my ear hot!"

"Just your ear?" she chuckles.

"Well, and my..." his eyes widen. He sniffs the air.

"Gilligan!" Ginger pulls him forward quickly. "You've been standing in front of the barbecue grill!"

Gilligan swats at the seat of his pants. "I'm on fire!" he yells. "I'm on fire! Make way everybody, I'm on fire!" With smoke pouring from his rear, he flees to the rain barrel, climbs up and sits in it, sighing with relief as the cold water sizzles against his posterior. Steam billows up. Everyone laughs. Gilligan burns his backside so much they've started to consider it one of his many hobbies.

"Poor Gilligan!" says Mary Ann, coming out of the Supply Hut with a box of mangoes.

Ginger watches her friend go. She knows Mary Ann will put down the mangoes and run over to Gilligan, fussing over him like the true friend she is, always hoping that this time will be the time that he notices her at last.

Love is a dangerous thing, Ginger thinks. Empires have fallen because of it. But still she drifts towards the Supply Hut, hoping to find _him _there.

He is there. He's almost always there. Mixing something, or making something, or reading something or puzzling over something. With his handsome brow furrowed, his sleeves rolled up and his top two shirt buttons undone, inviting the touch of a female hand upon his lightly tanned chest. He gets his colour from spending time over on the other side of the island, doing whatever it is that he does. Mapping and collating and researching and cross-referencing and cataloguing.

She wonders if he strips off to the waist when he's on his own, and ties his shirt around his head like Lawrence of Arabia, striding manfully through the jungle with the machete hanging from his belt and his socks pulled up to his knees.

She wonders about it a lot.

"Hello, Professor." She hears the change in her voice. The seductress becomes unsure of herself. Someone else is center stage now.

"Hello, Ginger!" He's genuinely happy to see her. He always is, so why does she always feel so awkward? Of course, she hides it beautifully. No-one would ever know she was 8 years old inside, staring up at this man who knows everything. This teacher of Worlds she'd never even heard of until now. With his gentle blue eyes and his crooked smile. _Sitting on his crooked stile..._

Ginger makes herself concentrate. Gone is the desire to conquer and control. She smiles at him and it's genuine. And while there's certainly nothing false about her fondness and love for the other male castaways, her games with them are just that. Games.

The Professor picks up a weighty tome. A World Of Facts. She's seen that book so many times it's become an old friend. That and the one about insects- Sometimes Ginger wills the mosquitoes and gnats to bite her so she can run to the Professor for a diagnosis. He opens the book at random and starts reading from it, waving his hands in the air for emphasis. Ginger hugs her abdomen, her arms draped loosely about herself. She feigns boredom. She 'yawns' and pats her mouth with her hand. The Professor picks an even more wildly unbelievable fact to regale her with. His eyes twinkle at her. He grins. He tells her something farfetched about ants lifting objects hundreds of times bigger than themselves. _They say it's the same as a man lifting a bus, but it's all to do with weight and gravity,_ he tells her, seriously. _Gravity isn't pulling very hard on an ant carrying a leaf._

_No, Professor, _she smiles._ I guess it isn't._

The aroma of dinner fills the air, the sound of people rattling dishes and cups and wooden forks and the chitter chatter of friends discussing their day. Ginger listens happily to the Professor spouting his nonsense. Putting her hand to her mouth when she giggles. Throwing her head back when she laughs out loud.

Marilyn Monroe leaves the stage and exits stage right, and the lights in the auditorium go down. Until the next performance.


	6. Sloth

_A/N: Thanks to JWood201 for her wonderful images of Lovey and the orphans which I've shamelessly borrowed. _

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><p><strong>Sloth<strong>

"Gilligaaaaaaan!" Skipper's voice foghorns across camp. "_Gilligaaaaaaan!_"

_Really. He's a darling man, the Captain. But does he have to bellow so? It's most uncouth._

"_Skipperrrrrrrr_!" The first mate's voice rings out like a howler monkey's from somewhere in the distance.

_Goodness, that piercing yodel should have seen us all rescued by now- I'm surprised they can't hear it in Honolulu!_

Eunice 'Lovey' Howell, nee Wentworth, sighs and takes another sip of her drink, a sweet mango/papaya concoction with just a tinch of rum- for taste. Mrs. Howell disapproves of excessive drinking, but at the pertinent time of day, and in small measures, an alcoholic pick-me-up can be quite refreshing.

"Ginger, I asked you to help me with the laundry!"

"But Mary Ann, I've only just buffed my nails. I can't immerse them in hot water now!"

_Oh! Those girls. Always skittering around and quarrelling over some petty task or other. _

At home, the Howells had staff for that sort of thing. They had so much staff that even their staff needed staff. They had someone for everything.

_That's what those poor girls need. Staff. Although where one finds good staff on a desert island is anyone's idea. There's no point asking any of those savage natives on the nearby islands either. Chores are tedious things but certainly nothing to lose one's head over._

Mrs. Howell titters girlishly at her own Witty, even though she didn't say it aloud and no-one else heard. She sips more drink. It's getting low. She spots Gilligan and signals to him. Tastefully, of course. She's trained him to notice all her little nods and gestures.

He comes ambling over, a gangly boy on the verge of manhood, still not entirely in control of his limbs. His arms swing, he takes loose strides. His shirt is always rumpled up across the front. She eyes him surreptitiously, as she would eye any guest at any one of her many dinner parties, at any one of her many homes. His dress sense is abysmal, but what he lacks in sartorial elegance he makes up for in enthusiasm, which is more than she can say for some of the more well-to-do people she's entertained throughout the years.

He comes within earshot. He knows not to yell at her. "Hi, Mrs. Howell," he says with a grin. "Everything okay?"

"Of course, Gilligan. Why shouldn't it be?" Mrs. Howell smiles back at him, wrinkles her nose coquettishly. She holds up her tall bamboo cup and wiggles it side to side. "Be a dear and top me up, will you?"

His big clumsy hand reaches out and takes the cup from her small, porcelain white one. She notices that his fingernails have grains of sand embedded under them. Mrs. Howell pulls her hand back lest he contaminate her. He's a sweet boy, but he does tend to spend a lot of his time crawling around on the floor.

"Thank you, Gilligan." She smiles flirtatiously, a habit she will never break. There are limits placed on growing old gracefully, but being able to flirt in a tasteful manner-and chastely- is not one of them. Goodness knows she has her work cut out for her here, stranded as she is with a shimmying Hollywood B Lister and Little Miss Kansas 1962.

"No problem, Mrs. Howell. Same again?"

"Of course! One must _never_ mix one's drinks."

Gilligan takes a mere three steps behind Mrs. Howell's sun lounger to the small table outside the Howell Hut where the fruit juices are standing in two separate jugs next to a bottle of rum, three quarters full.

Mrs. Howell fans herself and looks up while she waits, watching the coconut treetops sway in the breeze, the cottonball clouds chasing each other towards the heat white sun. She listens through the merry chittering of blackbirds and hears him unscrew the cap, then a quick glug of alcohol, the scent of it drifting over, sharp but sweet. Shortly she hears the swish of a fruity waterfall being poured on top, the jug being set down again. A slight pause, then she hears Gilligan mixing her drink with a cocktail stirrer. Tap tap tap tap tap. She even hears him take a sneaky sip- making sure he's got the mix right. She smiles indulgently. _He'll be feeling the alcohol behind his eyes, right about now. _Not once has she looked around- she knows his routine by heart. Her hand is already up and waiting when he comes back.

He puts the fresh drink straight into her waiting hand. "Here you go, Mrs. Howell. One part rum, four parts fruit juice, just the way you like it." He's not in the slightest bit bothered that she didn't get up and do it herself.

Mrs. Howell sips experimentally. She frowns and tilts her head, pursing her lips daintily.

"Dear me, I shall be drunk by dinner time!" she says.

"I didn't put _that_ much in," Gilligan starts protesting.

Mrs. Howell wrinkles her nose again, pleased that she got him going. "I'm teasing you, Gilligan. It's delightful."

"Oh." He's momentarily flustered, but then he's grinning again. "You had me worried there for a minute, Mrs. Howell! Well, if everything's okay, the Skipper needs my help, and..."

"Of course, Gilligan. You must go!" She lifts her hand and waves him off with her fingertips. "Time and tide wait for no man!"

He starts off, stops, gives a half-turn and looks back. "I guess I'd better get a move on then, if I want to go swimming!" he says, and giggles like a small child who's just said something hilarious and knows it.

Mrs. Howell raises her eyes and pretends to find his lame attempt at a joke amusing. "Yes, dear," she sighs. "Now run along before the Captain begins that dreadful racket again."

She watches him while she sips her drink, waiting for the moment when he starts running. Gilligan can never walk anywhere for long without breaking into a run, and sure enough, there he goes, literally pulling the future towards him with his feet, despite the fact that half the time he doesn't even know where he's going.

Thurston arrives next. He's carrying his golf clubs and wearing a look of grumpy distraction.

"Where _is_ that boy?" he grumbles.

"You just missed him, dear." Mrs. Howell feels a sense of relief that Gilligan managed to escape before Thurston got hold of him.

"But I _need _my caddy!" Thurston complains bitterly, before spotting the drinks table and going over to pour himself a stiff one. "I _never_ had this problem at the Country Club!"

"Careful, darling, we don't want you face down in the soup later," Mrs. Howell smiles. She knows which buttons to press, and occasionally she presses them just for fun.

Thurston ignores the comment, stands in the shade of the eaves and knocks his drink back in two gulps.

"Thurston! You're a lush!" his wife declares.

"If there's more than one person present, it's called social drinking." Thurston comes over and puts his hand gently on her shoulder. She lifts her fingers and rests them briefly on his.

"What are they all doing?" she asks. "You know I don't like to miss a thing!"

"Well," Thurston rubs his chin, draws his eyebrows together. "Mary Ann and Ginger are making a positive _meal_ out of doing the laundry. If it's not one thing, it's another. The Captain is trying to clear a drainage ditch but Gilligan keeps disappearing, and the Captain is literally shining with that...that liquidy substance...what's it called again?"

"Perspiration, dear." Mrs. Howell refuses to say 'sweat'.

"Ah yes, of course." Thurston shudders at the thought. "Oh, and the Egghead is sitting with the vegetables." He laughs mischievously. "They're in good company, if you ask me."

"Thurston!" Mrs. Howell says. "That poor man works very hard."

"Yes," Thurston replies. "I suppose someone has to. Still, the very mention of the word 'work' brings me out in hives, so please, dear, keep it to a minimum, will you?" The millionaire pats his wife's shoulder lovingly.

"Of course. It shan't happen again."

"Wonderful. Now, if you'll excuse me..." Thurston retrieves his golf clubs. "I'm going back to the green for some well-earned relaxation time."

"Of course, darling." Mrs. Howell treats her husband to one of her most winning smiles and watches him stride off, his chest puffed out, fortified by rum and the love of his dear lady wife.

Mrs. Howell knows she can still make Thurston's heart do backflips. Why, the young Eunice Wentworth in her heyday would have given those two young pretenders, Ginger Grant and Mary Ann Summers a run for their money and no mistake. Eunice Wentworth was an unrivalled Society Beauty. Eunice Wentworth wouldn't have been seen dead with her hands on her hips or pouting over a broken fingernail, even if she did on occasion behave that way in private. In the days before she met Thurston. Before her life changed so dramatically and irrevocably, the night they eloped.

The sun pulls a cloud over its face, suddenly shy. Mrs. Howell sips the drink Gilligan made her, thinking what a wonderful barman he'd make at their California retreat. Of course, he'd need a good manicure first. Not to mention a haircut and some clothes that fit him for a change. Palm fronds swish gently; from the beach she can hear the steady hiss and sigh of waves. In her mind, she recalls Thurston, young Thurston, handsome and debonair, even as they went behind the backs of her own mother and the entire Wentworth family. Thurston with his promise to love her forever. And then a day after that for good measure.

Eunice Wentworth never let anything stand in her way. She set her sights on something and she achieved it. And later on, after they'd been married a few years, Thurston's fortune made everything possible. Life became a whirlwind. A glittering social kaleidoscope. And they gave. At least, Lovey Howell gave. When the media flashbulbs stopped popping, freezing her in their harsh glare, she spent whole mornings writing open checks for the Orphanage and the Children's Hospital. Those darling children with their big, imploring eyes. Sometimes when she looks at Gilligan she thinks of orphans, even though he isn't one, and she knows that his parents will be missing him.

The rum and the sunshine make Mrs. Howell pleasantly sleepy. She looks into her drink. _Gilligan, the naughty boy. He's put far too much rum in this._

One nap won't do any harm, she decides. She sets her cup carefully down on the sand and wriggles into her comfortable spot on the sunlounger, the bit where it dips slightly and moulds itself to her delicate contours. The sun teases her, peeping out and then darting in again. Playing hide and seek.

She hears Gilligan in the distance, his tenor voice rising on a current of air. He makes her smile. He's young and free, and whether he knows it or not, these are the best years of his life.

With hazy, romantic thoughts of youth and adventure on her mind, Lovey Howell snuggles down and begins to nap, finally allowing herself the rest that Eunice Wentworth has earned.


	7. Gluttony

_So here we are at the final chapter! The last 'sin', and the last castaway. Thanks everyone for reading and reviewing, and much love for all the wisdom and good advice. I can't think of any fandom I'd rather be in than GI, even when it's quiet!_

_Tx_

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><p><strong>Gluttony<strong>

Gilligan had always been a hungry boy, even when he was small. His father was fond of saying Gilligan had a 'cast iron stomach'. His brother called him a bottomless pit and even sometimes a greedy pig, but his mother was very proud of her son's appetite and Gilligan didn't pay much attention to the insults, taking it for the gentle familial teasing that it was. He knew he was a big eater. He loved his food, and he loved his family, and in his world the two were intertwined.

It was easy to be a healthy kid growing up in post WWII America. Everything was plentiful, unlike in Europe, which was where the teachers at school said all the bad stuff happened. Kids in Europe didn't get to eat hamburgers and hot dogs and popcorn and chocolate and t-bone steaks with ketchup. Gilligan felt bad for those kids. It was only right that he appreciate his good fortune by eating twice as much, in honour of all the kids who only had cabbage to live on. If it were up to Gilligan, all kids would be happy and eat hamburgers and hot dogs forever.

When Gilligan came out of the Navy and moved to Hawaii with Captain Jonas Grumby, he felt as though he had truly moved away from home at last. The Navy had been almost like an extension of his own family and his parents had always known they could reach him through the official routes, even when he was out at sea. But in Hawaii he was a free man- his fate was out of the Navy's hands and into his own. He could eat what he wanted, when he wanted. With just a few dollars in his pocket he could eat burgers and ice cream all day if he so desired, and his fast metabolism meant he would burn it all off within forty eight hours, unlike the poor Skipper, who only had to look at a Hostess Twinkie and he'd put on 5lbs.

After the shipwreck, while everyone else worried about where they were going to live and how they were going to stay sane, Gilligan was dismayed at the thought of no more hamburgers, hot dogs and ice cream. His spoiled, Western stomach growled at the mere thought of all that deprivation. How would he survive? He had the metabolism of a small, speedy mammal. He _had_ to eat. If he didn't, he'd die!

A day's reconnoitring around the island had thrown up plentiful supplies of bananas, papayas, pineapples, mangoes, starfruit and sugar apples all growing wild. Plus numerous berries and succulents that the Professor warned them not to touch until he'd identified them properly. What with fish in the ocean and edible crabs on the beach, there was now no reason to starve, even though it meant re-educating the tastebuds and getting the stomach used to more natural foods. Surprisingly, Gilligan made the transition with no real difficulties. The sugar content of bananas and mangoes was pretty much like ice cream, and the citrussy tang of pineapple juice kept the thirst at bay. With the culinary skills of Mary Ann thrown in, they were soon pretty much eating better quality food than they ate at home- except the Howells, of course, who bemoaned the lack of quails' eggs and wafer thin slices of ham off the bone.

At home, Gilligan always ate meals with his family all sitting at the table together, discussing their day, and so he was thrilled when the same thing happened on the island. Once they'd constructed the bamboo dining table and chairs, every meal time became an occasion, a chance to catch up with each other. And now, even if they spend their days away from each other, whether sitting on the beach or walking around the lagoon or exploring the depths of the jungle, they always come together for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's a good way of keeping a head count, too. If anyone doesn't show up, a search party gets sent out. Usually it's Gilligan, found snoring under a shady palm tree and awoken with a gentle shake of the shoulder and a smile. Sometimes it reminds him of being woken up in the mornings by his mother and he rouses from sleep with the memory of her soft, gentle voice in his ear. _Come on and eat breakfast, William, or you'll be late for school!_

Mary Ann has never had anyone appreciate her cooking as much as Gilligan does. His favourite is her coconut crème pie, then her banana crème pie, then her pineapple pie. Sometimes a combination of all three, and sometimes even with added other ingredients. Mary Ann thinks she could happily bake for him all day. He appears out of nowhere to hover in the doorway as soon as the first warm aromas hit the air, and he'll turn his big, happy eyes on her and they'll be so shiny with anticipation that she'll see her own reflection in them, the smile on her own face almost as wide as his. She can't think of any way to make him happier. Well, with the exception of one thing, and he's not ready for that yet.

Gilligan has never told Mary Ann that he dreams of her pies. Sometimes when he has a falling nightmare, he's saved by one of Mary Ann's pies, one big enough to catch him in its warm, sugary peaks. He'll land in it and lie there, staring up at the blue sky, cocooned in sugary sweetness. Those are the dreams he never wants to wake up from.

"I don't know where you put them," Mary Ann says one day, as Gilligan tucks into his third banana crème pie.

Gilligan sits up straight and pats his stomach.

"In here," he mumbles, his mouth full.

"In where?" Mary Ann laughs. "There's nothing of you!"

"I'm a growing boy," he grins, scooping more thick, creamy pie filling onto his fork.

"So is Baby Huey," Mary Ann replies, laughing at the look he gives her while she clears away the pie plates he's already licked clean.

Gilligan bends his head towards the pie but something makes him look up and watch Mary Ann walking back towards the Supply Hut. He finds himself doing this quite often, watching Mary Ann as she walks away from him. He doesn't know how to explain it, but the air quality feels different when she's gone. Thinner. Like it's missing something. He scoops up an extra big forkful of pie and crams it in, watching the Supply Hut until she reappears.

"What?" she asks.

He shakes his head. "N'th'n," he mumbles. He chews and swallows. "Just seeing if there was any more pie coming."

Mary Ann folds her face up into a playful scowl. "_More_ pie? Isn't three pies enough, Gilligan?"

"Sure, it's enough," he teases her back. "For now."

She sits across from him at the table. "I spoil you too much," she says, resting her chin on her hand.

After school, Gilligan's mother would put milk and cookies on the table for him and he'd sit and tell her about his day. The things Skinny Mulligan had gotten them into trouble for. Never bad trouble, just childish pranks. Gilligan had an eye for detail and his mother would laugh gaily at his recollections, not at all angry. She told him he was just like his grandfather- her father. She told him he had the same blue eyes, the same colourful imagination, the same ability to take a dull, every day sequence of events and turn it into something fantastical. A natural born storyteller, she called him, and his heart would burst with pride as he dunked yet another cookie into his glass of milk.

_And the same appetite, _she'd add, ruffling his hair and kissing the top of his head.

"You know, Mary Ann," Gilligan says, cutting into the pie crust with the edge of his fork, "I don't think I'd enjoy these pies half as much if they were made by somebody else." He says it quite casually, but as soon as the words are out of his mouth he wants to take them back. He's not sure what it is that makes his stomach do a quick somersault, as though he's just confessed something embarrassing.

"Why, Gilligan! What a lovely thing to say! Thank you!"

He looks up, bashfully, and her chocolate eyes are brimming with happiness, as though he just gave her exactly what she'd always wanted for her birthday.

"You're welcome," he says, stuttering slightly. He fills his mouth with pie to stop himself from saying anything that might incriminate him further, although into what, he doesn't know.

Gilligan eats silently for a while, with Mary Ann sitting across from him. He doesn't mind that she watches him eat. He finds it reassuring. When he does start talking again, it's only to tell her of something funny that the Skipper did that morning. She laughs at his tales in almost the same way his mother did, but then again, not in the same way at all, because the warm feeling he gets when Mary Ann laughs feels very different. There's an edge to it, as though it has sharp bits and prickles him all over, even as it settles on him like a comforter. He's not sure why that is, but he likes it. It must be what being mildly electrocuted feels like. Not what you'd want, but not entirely unpleasant, either. He feels vaguely unnerved by it.

When the third pie is finished, Gilligan immediately feels empty again. He looks mournful as Mary Ann gets up and removes the pie plate from in front of him, even having to extricate the fork from between his fingers.

"There's no point in looking sad, Gilligan. You're not getting any more pie."

"But..." Gilligan gazes wistfully at the space on the table where a pie used to sit. He gazes wistfully at his now forkless fingers. "But..."

"No buts, Gilligan. You've had three, and that's more than enough." Mary Ann stands by his shoulder, and suddenly he wishes he wasn't wearing his hat, because he wants more than anything for her to ruffle his hair.

"But..." he says again, and sits there with his shoulders slumped as she walks away, laughing. _But it's not just the pie,_ he wants to say. _It's not just the pie..._

The air grows thin again, and catches in his chest. He pushes his chair back and stands up. Pie sinks to the bottom of his stomach and sits there, churning. Three pies _is_ more than enough. But three pies will never be enough. He doesn't know why. He doesn't know what makes him want to keep eating and eating, even when he's full.

Mary Ann comes back, pie-less. There is no more pie, not even a slice she was hiding as a surprise. Gilligan resigns himself to the realisation that there are still a few more hours until dinner time, but then the same thought begins to reassure him. Only a few more hours. It's not long to wait. And then Mary Ann will bake him something else, and that first forkful will taste better than anything he's ever tasted before. Sweeter, warmer and creamier, and as it hits his stomach the sweetness and warmth will spread outwards through his body until even his fingers and toes are alive with heat.

"No swimming after all that pie," Mary Ann says, mock-sternly.

"I know. Or I'll get cramp," Gilligan recites. His mother used to say exactly the same thing.

"I'm surprised you haven't got cramp now." Mary Ann makes a point of peering at his stomach, which is slightly rounded at the moment, but will soon be board flat again.

"I have, a little bit," he confesses, because it's true. He's full, and yet, he's empty. He rests his hand on his stomach and sighs. If three pies aren't enough to fill him up, then what is?

Mary Ann smiles up at him and he knows. Of course he knows. He knows without a shadow of a doubt. Mary Ann's smile sets him at rest, just as Mary Ann walking away from him makes the air grow thin. It's not just the pie. It's Mary Ann. The same as it wasn't just the milk and cookies after school, it was his mother and her unconditional love for him, and his for her.

"So what do you want to do for the rest of the day, besides digest pie?" Mary Ann laughs at Gilligan's look of bewilderment. To her, he just looks his normal, confused self. She has no idea that he feels as though he's fallen off the precipice and landed in the biggest, warmest pie he's ever known.

Gilligan shrugs. "Want to go hunt some butterflies?" he chances, knowing she will probably have chores.

But Mary Ann surprises him. Like she always does. She comes over and links her arm through his, and her beautiful smile fills him to the brim in all the places that he knows her pies, no matter how delicious, will never quite reach. ""Why not?" she says, her brown eyes shining. "It looks like the perfect day for butterflies!"


End file.
